My dad is a Jack Nicholson lookalike and a frustrated performer, my mother's into reading and poetry. I suppose the thing I owe them most is my confidence.

Americans are much more open than people in Britain.

We knew, very early on, that we had to be very, very clear that directors need to speak to actors and actresses and be very clear about what is expected, and find out whether they're comfortable with that. Wardrobe has to be in place. There have to be checks.

No matter how difficult things are, and no matter how much grief and loss there is, you can turn it into something positive.

'Hamlet' is one of the most dangerous things ever set down on paper. All the big, unknowable questions like what it is to be a human being; the difference between sanity and insanity; the meaning of life and death; what's real and not real. All these subjects can literally drive you mad.

A parent can seem very kind and gentle, but as any child knows, as soon as that parent gets stressed, they can suddenly turn and get a bit angry.

It has to be absolutely believable. It's also going between images and scenes with nudity and sexuality that would be seen, in conventional terms, as kind of sexually exciting. It's up against things that are much more medical and gynecological, and notoriously we, as a culture and a society, have some issues with that kind of thing.